The difference is that you can criticize the government and not be thrown in jail. You have a lot more autonomy in your opinions on how you are governed. You can have his conversation at all!

> Contrary to previous understandings, posts with negative, even vitriolic, criticism of [China], its leaders, and its policies are not more likely to be censored. Instead, we show that the censorship program is aimed at curtailing collective action by silencing comments that represent, reinforce, or spur social mobilization, regardless of content.

https://gking.harvard.edu/publications/how-censorship-china-...

Okay, so we can even have the conversation about broad social implications, compare/contrast, what we can do about it, etc. is a drastic difference.

Shouldn't hate speech should be punished?

Offending someone shouldn't be illegal. Period.

Directly inciting actual physical violence, you might have an argument for.

But words and ideas must remain free to maintain any semblance of a free society.

As other commenters have said: who decides?

The problem with that is, who defines what “hate” is?

London deemed hate wpeech punishable, China determines certain speech (that it deems bad for society as well) punishable. No difference except for a difference in perspective.

No. Not because of the usual slippery slope reasons, but because denying someone their freedom for mere words is abhorrent.